The Essential Series

 

These highly technical courses are taught by instructors with actual long-term experience and expertise with the described practices and tools. For example: As a developer, I (Rob Myers) started using TDD techniques in 1998 (the XP practices of test-first and refactoring, before Agile and TDD were given their current names), and continued to do so for many years as developer and XP Coach.

We are also continually updating these courses to reflect the latest technological enhancements and knowledge available to the Agile community (e.g., the introduction of Robot Framework to our Essential Agile Testing course).

Essential Test-Driven Development

A 3-day course for developers, providing hands-on experience with the techniques of Test-Driven Development (TDD).

This set of practices for developers is at the heart of low-defect Agile software development. Attendees learn the techniques of test-first, refactoring, mock objects, and others. They learn how these techniques provide and maintain a very low defect-count, plus why TDD helps developers work fearlessly, swiftly, and comfortably on new features and bug-fixes. They will also learn how to work on legacy code: Building test-coverage for critical areas, and protecting areas of the legacy system that do not yet require any alteration.

Languages: The course is currently offered in Java, C#, C++, and VisualBasic.Net. Ruby is also an option upon request.
Instructors: Rob Myers, Lars Thorup

Essential Agile Principles and Practices

This highly-interactive 2-day course is for individuals and teams who want to explore, adopt, or improve an Agile development methodology. You will discover how to work together, as a team, to deliver the highest value early and often, while maintaining a very high standard of quality. Designed for everyone involved in (and around) a development team, this course has the ability to adapt to a variety of experience levels and functional areas. You will learn about the various Agile methods,and their values, principles, and practices. Rather than leave you with a giant list of to-do items and further stress, you will identify which techniques are essential for success, which are critical for your team’s current situation, and which are optional, customizable, or could be postponed in certain circumstances.

Ask about our very popular 1/2-day extension to this course, which will help the team transition from “classroom” activities to the day-to-day creation of value.

Instructors: Rob Myers

Essentials of Emergent Design: Object-Oriented Patterns, Architectures, and Practices for the Agile Developer

Short iterations and ongoing customer involvement in an agile process means software needs to change frequently. This makes architecture and design even more important for the agile team. Without paying attention to how software is constructed, the agile process of iterative development can soon degrade code into a maintenance nightmare. This is the “Agilist’s Dilemma.” To successfully avoid it, the team must know which decisions have to be made up front and which can and should be deferred until later. This unique 3-day course for developers covers the critical skills needed to build software that can easily change. The course addresses both architectures and software designs that emerge over time.

Instructors: David Bernstein, Rob Myers

Essential Agile Testing

This course is perfect for agile teams struggling with automated testing. This is a 2-day course for testers and developers. The first day focuses on what testers can do to provide up-front, “test-first” acceptance tests, which also serve as readable, executable specifications, and as part of a comprehensive regression suite. The second day the team will implement and execute the tests using a pre-selected test framework’s primary format (see details below). Developers will learn how to build small, simple test-to-production translators (in either Java or C#) which connect the tests to the system under test.
Prior to the course, assistance will be given to help you choose the particular collaborative tool appropriate for your team and domain:

Tabular tools: Suitable for domains that are data-driven or equation-heavy, such as many financial or scientific applications. Tools available include Ward Cunningham’s Fit, ObjectMentor’s FitNesse, and Rick Mugridge’s FitLibrary.
Given/When/Then tools: Suitable for domains that are rule-based or workflow-oriented, such as most customer-facing web applications. Tools available include RSpec, Cucumber, JBehave, and Robot Framework.

The two are not mutually exclusive, technically or conceptually.

Instructors: Rob Myers, Elisabeth Hendrickson

Whole-Team Courses

Agile Constraints Assessment Workshop

You know something is keeping your organization from successfully reaching its maximum potential, but you don’t know how to figure out what that thing is. Treating the symptoms seems to be an ineffective, ongoing struggle. And when you try to change many things at once it wastes energy and distracts your people.

Imagine what a difference it would make if you could find the one constraint which is holding your organization back.

What if you could focus your energy in the one place which would make the most difference?

You can! Our Constraints Assessment Workshop does just that. The workshop is based on The Thinking Process promoted by renowned Theory of Constraints expert Eli Goldratt.

Instructors: Richard Lawrence, Rob Myers

Agile Immersion Workshop

A 1-day workshop designed for people that are new to agile. During this workshop participants learn how agile works and put that knowledge to use creating a product using an agile process. Participants take turns playing various roles in the process so that every attendee gets a chance to experience agile from all the different perspectives. Each attendee leaves with not only intellectual knowledge about agile, but a deeper understanding based on having experienced it.
Instructors: Rob Myers, Elisabeth Hendrickson, Chris Sims, Bob Hartman

Agile Startup

This 2-day course is designed to be taken by the entire software product team or IT team at one time. The discussions, and small and large group exercises, are designed to foster team collaboration and communication. Attendees leave the course knowing the whys and hows of agile development as well as how they are all supposed to work together as a cohesive team. When done as an on-site course a significant portion of the second day is spent breaking down, sizing and estimating actual project requirements.
Instructors: Rob Myers, Bob Hartman, Chris Sims

Business-Facing Courses

Agile Project Management

A 3-day immersion into the world of the Agile Project Manager or Scrum Master. Attendees not only get an in-depth understanding of the role, they get practice performing their duties during the course. The course contains many practical exercises that build on the knowledge learned each day. The course is designed for beginning and intermediate level Agile Project Managers. At the conclusion of the course each attendee will understand how an Agile team functions and the principles that guide it. In addition, each attendee will know the specific responsibilities of the Agile Project Manager and how to perform them. Specific problem solving skills as well as the most frequently encountered problems are also covered.
Instructors: Rob Myers, Chris Sims, Bob Hartman

Agile Product Management

A 2-day immersion into the world of the Agile Product Manager (often known as the Product Champion, Scrum Product Owner, or XP Customer). This course is designed to give participants an in-depth understanding of their role on the Agile team. The course is designed for the beginning to intermediate level Agile Product Manager. Attendees learn about the importance of prioritization and various methods for prioritizing product backlogs. They also learn the basics of how agile teams function and the responsibilities of their role through a series of exercises immersing them in a simulated agile project utilizing various skills and techniques they have been taught during the course.
Instructors: Bob Hartman, Chris Sims, Rob Myers

Agile for Enterprises

A 2-day course specifically for managers within software development organizations consisting of multiple teams. This course extends team-based agility across multiple teams, multiple processes and multiple locations. The course covers the entire product development process from concept to deployment, not just the software development and testing phases. This course is only given as an on-site course for clients that have successfully completed an enterprise agile assessment.
Instructors: Bob Hartman

Agile Business Analysis

A 2-day course designed for business analysts and others that deal with requirements. The course is based on the IIBA™ Business Analysis Body of Knowledge® (BABOK®). Using the generally accepted practices from the BABOK the course shows how each can be used in agile ways. At the conclusion of the course participants know how to do agile business analysis as well as how use of those techniques can also help in non-agile environments.
Instructors: Bob Hartman

Other Courses

Agile for Developers

A 1 or 2 day course depending on whether introductory agile training is included. The 1-day version and the 2nd day of the 2-day version focus on agile estimation and planning. Various techniques for estimating work are explored. The course concentrates on an easy-to-implement work-breakdown structure that helps eliminate waste in the process. Attendees use the work breakdown structure as a model while doing various sizing and estimation exercises. At the end of the course participants will understand how to do estimating and planning in an agile environment without generating waste.
Instructors: Rob Myers, Bob Hartman

Packages to suit your goals

The Agile Ignition

This comprehensive 8-week program includes an assessment and the training and coaching necessary to “Go Agile.” This is a proven way to get your team on an efficient path to delivering valuable, quality software on-time and within budget. The basic package consists of a 1-day assessment, the 2.5-day Essential Agile Principles and Practices training, and coaching through a release-planning session and three iterations (iteration planning meetings, demos and retrospectives). Coaching generally totals 4-7 days over the course of 6 weeks (3 iterations).

Instructors/Mentors: Rob Myers, Bob Hartman, Richard Lawrence

The Agile Accelerator

For teams who want to take their agile process to “the next level.” This package includes the Agile Constraints Assessment, then we work closely with the client to create an outline addressing areas of weakness in order to improve the overall agile process. From this we deliver a customized course (1-3 days) designed to help your organization in specific areas of improvement. Organizations should be using an agile process for at least one year prior to using this package.

Instructors/Mentors: Rob Myers, Bob Hartman, Richard Lawrence

The Agile Jump-Start

This package is for the agile team in trouble: You’re building software iteratively, and holding daily stand-up meetings. Yet morale is low, quality is poor, and/or commitments are not being met. This package includes the Agile Constraints Assessment, followed by our recommendations for training or coaching, or both. Often this includes one of our technical “Essential” courses, and at least a day of coaching.

Instructors/Mentors: Rob Myers, Bob Hartman, Richard Lawrence